Irrigation water management and tillage levels for potato production under heavy soil conditions [electronic resource].

Includes bibliographic reference.

The study was carried out at the Experimental Farm of
Moshtohor Faculty of Agriculture, Benha University during the
winter seasons of 2018 /2019 and 2019/2020 to evaluate the
efficiency of surface drip irrigation system for saving water
under three irrigation water management strategies (full
irrigation requirement (FI) of crop evapotranspiration (ETc)
(control), sustainable deficit irrigation (DI) 75 and 50 % of
FI,), yield and fruit quality of potato cultivar “Spunta” under
different tillage levels (zero, 25, 50 and 100%) tillage depths.
The results confirmed that the conversional tillage (100%) (40-
50 cm depth) has the best effect on plant growth and yield
among all tillage levels. The DI of 75% had the highest growth
and yield parameters in both seasons. Respect to the
interaction, potato plants that received 75% of ETc under
conversional tillage (100%) recorded the highest yield and
plant Morphological properties. A gradual increase in tuber
yield/fed and water productivity were observed with the
increase of tillage degree across all irrigation water levels. The
highest tuber yield (17.19 ton/fed) and the highest water
productivity (19.34 kg/m3
) for plants that received 75% ETc
under the conversional tillage. This means that when utilizing
complete ploughing with 75% of the irrigation water
requirements, it is possible to conserve around 25% of the
irrigation water used while still getting the highest yield

Summary in Arabic.